Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 3/18/26: Trump Threatens To Leave NATO, US Iraq Embassy Hit, Ben Shapiro Crash Out

Transcript

3/18/26: Trump Threatens To Leave NATO, US Iraq Embassy Hit, Ben Shapiro Crash Out · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

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  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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  Speaker 4: think right Reddit.
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  Speaker 5: No comment on the Reddit.
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  Speaker 4: They keep telling people that no matter what their question is,
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  Speaker 4: the answer is you should break up with that person. No,
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: it's a math question. They're like, yeah, you should leave them.
• 1:33
  Speaker 5: Two plus two equals. Get the hell out of that, right.
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  Speaker 4: Yes, anyway, so welcome, thank you, and we hope you
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  Speaker 4: stick around. Because only that first month was free. You
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  Speaker 5: Yes, but it's worth it to help us keep doing
• 1:45
  Speaker 5: the independent journalism, cleaning the floors apparently. And we've got
• 1:49
  Speaker 5: a big show today, Donald Trump threatening to pull out
• 1:52
  Speaker 5: of NATO directly in comments that he made in front
• 1:54
  Speaker 5: of reporters at the White House yesterday, a hit on
• 1:59
  Speaker 5: the embassy and the massive green zone that we have
• 2:02
  Speaker 5: in Iraq. We're going to break down the details on that.
• 2:04
  Speaker 5: We have lots of footage from around the Middle East,
• 2:07
  Speaker 5: but Ryan that in particular seems to me like it's
• 2:11
  Speaker 5: going under the radar in the new cycle right now.
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we went to war, as some people might remember,
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: in two thousand and three in Iraq. We were going
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: to take that country off the chess board. Mission was accomplished,
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: and now they keep Iraqi militias there like bombing our
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: embassy there and firing at our bombers as they go
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: over top, and the refueling jets giant mess. Meanwhile, where
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: Trump seems to be trying to get the Iraqi Prime
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: minister out of office, like some more regime change. So yeah,
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: we'll get into that, right and.
• 2:43
  Speaker 5: We have more fallout from Joe Kent's resignation. Soccer and
• 2:46
  Speaker 5: Crystal were able to cover that quickly yesterday, but it
• 2:49
  Speaker 5: continued to rage in the news cycle throughout the day yesterday,
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: as it should, of course, when you have a top
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: intelligence official resigning over whether or not an imminent threat
• 2:59
  Speaker 5: was an appropriate press etiquette for the war in Iran.
• 3:02
  Speaker 5: He questioned whether or not there was an imminent threaten
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: so yesterday this was swirling online. The President commented on it.
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: So we're going to bring you that clip as well.
• 3:11
  Speaker 5: Then we're going to do an update from Cuba where
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: the electrical grid. If you haven't been following this suffering
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: across Cuba, protests across Cuba, we are going to break
• 3:21
  Speaker 5: that down Ryan.
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: Yes, and I'll be going there this weekend.
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: That's right.
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: I'm a group of journalists are going and so if
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: you are a pre inscriber, you're helping send me to Cuba.
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: That's right.
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: Whether how that makes you feel is up to you.
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: Don't worry about it. Well, but as we know facts
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: over feelings, that's right. We'll see there will be a
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: camera crew. We will have some updates from Ryan next week.
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: For sure, Rocana is getting called out by Jonathan Greenblat,
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: perhaps not surprising, but it's turned into a very ugly
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: war and green Blatt is leveling some really ugly charges
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: against Rocanna. We will have updates on that. And it's
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: a Wednesday and Term cycle, which means we have some
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: election results. The much watched kat Abogaza Lee Daniel Biss
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: race that was last night and the numbers are in.
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: Should we spoil it?
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Biss one, but APAC took some losses well in
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: that race, and then in a couple others, and also
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: notched a couple of wins. We'll talk about that, plus
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: the role of AI and Crypto and the Senate race
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: and in the House races.
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: All right, we'll break it down. Let's start now with NATO.
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: Donald Trump yesterday in a bilateral conversation in the Oval
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: office of Saint Patrick's day. So he was with Irish
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: leaders at the White House yesterday. Here is Trump getting
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: asked about NATO and whether or not the US should
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: pull out of NATO, particularly at least Donald Trump took
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: the direction of the conversation in that direction. Let's rull
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: a one here.
• 4:47
  Speaker 7: Are you be thinking of the United States relationships with
• 4:51
  Speaker 7: NATO possibly getting out?
• 4:53
  Speaker 8: Well, I'm disappointed in NATO that we spend trillions of
• 4:57
  Speaker 8: dollars on NATA. Think of it, trillions over the years,
• 5:00
  Speaker 8: many trillions of dollars. It's one of the reasons we
• 5:03
  Speaker 8: have deficits and we help other countries and when they
• 5:07
  Speaker 8: don't help us. I mean, it's certainly something that we
• 5:11
  Speaker 8: should think about. I don't need Congress for that decision,
• 5:14
  Speaker 8: as you probably know, I can make that decision myself.
• 5:17
  Speaker 8: I'd work with some very smart people, and I'd always
• 5:20
  Speaker 8: deal with Congress anyway. But I don't need Congress for
• 5:23
  Speaker 8: that decision. But you know, when you say, rethink, I
• 5:28
  Speaker 8: have nothing currently in mind. But I will say that
• 5:32
  Speaker 8: I'm not exactly thrilled when we help them with Ukraine.
• 5:36
  Speaker 8: Ukraine would have been over in one day if we didn't.
• 5:39
  Speaker 8: He frankly, Ukraine would have been over in the first day.
• 5:41
  Speaker 8: And they had the best equipment in the world. It
• 5:43
  Speaker 8: was our equipment. I think NATO's making a very foolish mistake.
• 5:47
  Speaker 8: And I've long said that. You know, I wonder whether
• 5:50
  Speaker 8: or not NATO would ever be there for us. So
• 5:53
  Speaker 8: this is a This was a great test because we
• 5:56
  Speaker 8: don't need them, but they should have been there.
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: Right So he doesn't have any plans the moment, is
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: what he said, but also doesn't necessarily need Congress to
• 6:04
  Speaker 5: do it, and he's very upset at NATO. Ryan.
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: He's mad, but he's not mad. He doesn't need them,
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: but he would like them.
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: They're not that important, but they're very important. This is
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: so the President also posted, lest you think that was
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: just a comment, in the Oval office, he says the
• 6:21
  Speaker 5: United States on true social has been informed by most
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: of our NATO allies that they don't want to get
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: don't want to get involved with our military operation against
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: the terrorist re stream of Iran in the Middle East.
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: This despite the fact that almost every country strongly agreed
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: with what we were doing and that Iran cannot, in
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: any way, shape or form be allowed to have a
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: nuclear weapon. I'm not surprised by their action, however, because
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: I always considered NATO, where we spend hundreds of billions
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: of dollars per year protecting these same countries, to be
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: a one way street. We will protect them, but they
• 6:48
  Speaker 5: will do nothing for us, in particular in a time
• 6:52
  Speaker 5: of need. Fortunately, we have decimated Iran's military. Goes on
• 6:55
  Speaker 5: and on to say that we do not need the
• 6:57
  Speaker 5: help of anyone. Then he signs off, thank you for
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: your attention to this matter. President Donald J. Trump. So, Ryan,
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: this is obviously over the Strait of Hormuz conflict. How
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: much of a breach, after all of the breaches, after
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: all of the chips that have already been put into
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: the foundation of the US NATO alliance. How much do
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: you think this particular doest up yesterday matters.
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: I think what it shows right, is that he is
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: really flailing that his idea for this war was very
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: Venezuela esque. He's going to go in or Israel's going
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: to go in. Actually, Israel carried out the first strike
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: and they hit the Ayatola, they hit the top leadership,
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: and YadA, YadA, YadA. That was going to lead to
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: something better nan yah who obviously had a much more
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: sophisticated and thought out plan. N Yaha's plan is we're
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: going to hit them. They're going to hit everyone back.
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: Because they said that out loud many times. They sent
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: it even in a letter to like the United Nations.
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: It wasn't it wasn't just like dropsite reporting or posts.
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: It was like they put it in a letter that said,
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: we're going to hit all the bases where the United
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: States has forces, and even if these are our brotherly countries,
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: we're going to hit them. So Israel knew that they
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: would do that, knew that that would mean that we
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: would respond with, you know, considerable overwhelming force in response.
• 8:26
  Speaker 6: And the idea is then.
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: You you degrade Iran's you know, military and economic infrastructure
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: for a generation like so at least at least Israel
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: had an idea. Trump seemed to have no idea and
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: seemed to think that it wasn't even possible that Iran
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: would close the Strait of Hormuz. And now he has
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: this idea that he's going to get the Europeans to
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: help him open it back up. Which I'm so confused here.
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: I thought, we have a trillion dollar military, right, aren't.
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: Aren't we like the biggest, most well funded military in
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: the history of the world. And we need France and
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: like Britain to send ships up and down the straight
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: up hor moves like we can't do that ourselves.
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: Well, I think to your point, you're right, he likely
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: didn't anticipate that this would happen.
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: And also apparently we can't do it ourselves that you know,
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: it's a very tight spot there, and they can fire
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: from the sea or from the land at the ships there.
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: Here's a question for you speaking of our inability to
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: do this. The USS Gerald Ford right, first it had
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: this massive sewage problem. Now it's got this problem where
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: the dryer area caught fire, burned up to six hundred bunks.
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: So like sailors are now sleeping on floors on tables.
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: They're investigating whether or not it was sabotage from the
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: sailors themselves. There was some reporting that the sewage blockup
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: came from T shirts and clothes that were flushed down
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: the toilets. I don't know anybody that accidentally flushes T
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: shirts down a toilet.
• 10:12
  Speaker 6: You ever meet anybody that does that?
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: Not?
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: Off the top of my head, do I remember meeting somebody?
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: Does that?
• 10:18
  Speaker 7: Now?
• 10:18
  Speaker 6: Who's on this ship?
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: Thousands upon thousands of I would suspect very angry nineteen
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: year olds who were sent to Venezuela to do that
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: operation and then told they were going to go home,
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: and instead of that, sent all the way across the
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: world to now do a war with Iran, and they
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: know that war started killing one hundred and sixty plus
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: little girls at an elementary school.
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: Alternate possibility, or it could be a combination of both
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: the infrastructure on our aging military equipment because of the
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: ridiculous defense industrial complex is horrible.
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: You can get the best toilet LOWS has to offer,
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: and if you flushed T shirts down it, do.
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: You know how hard it would be to get a
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: government contract for better toilets on the USSUR.
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: Yes, they already have twenty five thousand dollars toilets for sure.
• 11:11
  Speaker 6: But even though you flush t shirts down, they're going
• 11:14
  Speaker 6: to clog up.
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it's I wouldn't rule that out at all.
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: Wouldn't rule either possibility out and all or a combination
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: of both. Trump was also salty. We played a little
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: bit of him talking about Ukraine, but he was also
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: salty about Ukraine. We can roll this next element in
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: the amount of money that the US has put into
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: that conflict.
• 11:34
  Speaker 8: When they say it was a threat but we're not
• 11:36
  Speaker 8: going to help, I think they're very foolish.
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 11:40
  Speaker 8: It's interesting. It's interesting because I could say this that
• 11:45
  Speaker 8: what's happening in Ukraine, we're probably in there for four
• 11:49
  Speaker 8: hundred billion dollars. We don't spend any money anymore. They
• 11:52
  Speaker 8: buy it from US and they pay full price. But
• 11:54
  Speaker 8: Biden gave them between three hundred and fifty and four
• 11:57
  Speaker 8: hundred billion dollars of equipment and care something. They have
• 12:01
  Speaker 8: to find out about the cash, and you could say
• 12:06
  Speaker 8: that wasn't a threat. You know, we're helping them. So
• 12:09
  Speaker 8: we helped them and they didn't help us, And I
• 12:12
  Speaker 8: think that's a very bad thing for NATA.
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: So right, I gotta say he's making a solid point
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: there in the sense that he is correct that we
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: put a lot of money into the world, continue to
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: put a lot of money into the war in Ukraine,
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: which is approximate threat in a way for these European
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: countries that all want us back in Ukraine. They're all
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: back in Ukraine. It's much closer home to them. Actually
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: technically so is Iran. But this is his point about
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: NATO in general, that even people in NATO have conceded
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: that they should have been putting more money into NATO,
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: they should have been meeting their NATO commitments. Since he
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: took over his first term. This has been the big fight.
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: And he's not incorrect that Ukraine is a much much
• 12:59
  Speaker 5: bigger threat. The encouragion in Ukraine is a much bigger threat,
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: or they at least saw it as a much bigger
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: threat to themselves. But everyone in the US defense establishment
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: also wanted to back Ukraine in the same way that
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: everyone in the US defense established. It's the same. It's
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: not as though, I mean, Trump sees it as, oh,
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: we were doing them a favor, but the US defense
• 13:22
  Speaker 5: establishment sees it as they're doing us a favor. Because
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: they think Putin's going to take over all of Russia.
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: Right, We're not all of Europe. Yeah, We're not in
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: the business of doing charity for anybody, including Europe.
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: The money is funneling right back into our weapons industries,
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: and we love strategically to be able to quote unquote
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: bleed Russia.
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: Well, and our conservatives are still stuck in nineteen seventy
• 13:49
  Speaker 5: three and believe that truly believe that this is the
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: Soviet Union that Putin wants to Actually they believe maybe
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: it's even pre Soviet Union that he wants. He has
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: his designs on all of Europe. He's going to march
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: into you know, Paris if you give him the Dawnboss.
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: There is an interesting development this week that suggests how
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: kind of but herd isn't the word, but like, how
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: deeply kind of America's national security complex is struggling with
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: how this war is going. That a column in Al
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: Jazeera written by a professor in Doha went megaviral among
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: our elites here in the United States because it told
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: them the opposite of what they've been absorbing, which is
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: that we're losing and this has been a strategic catastrophe
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: of epic proportions. And the headline is you can put
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: up a four. The US Israeli strategy against Iran is working.
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: Here's why. So this went everywhere. But if you read it,
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: you're like, wait a minute, I don't think these points
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: are true. It's not that you can agree or disagree
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: with the argument that's being made, but they're just fundamentally
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: actually incorrect. And the key one and I'll read it
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: from it here the guy says about this framing inverts
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: the strategic logic. Closing the Strait of her Moves was
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: always Iran's most visible retaliatory card and always a wasting asset.
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: About ninety percent of Iran's own oil own oil exports
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: passed through carg Island and then the Strait. China, Tehran's
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: largest remaining economic partner, cannot receive Iranian crude. While the
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: strait is shut. Every day the blockade continues, Iran severs
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: its own economic lifeline and alienates the one major power
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: that has consistently shielded at the United Nations the closure.
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: The closure does not just hurt the global economy, it
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: accelerates Iran's isolation.
• 15:47
  Speaker 6: So this essay just ripped around.
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: The National Securities Establishment here in the United States and saying, wait, maybe.
• 15:54
  Speaker 6: We are doing okay.
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: It was in playbook yesterday.
• 15:57
  Speaker 6: Oh my god, and I see it was in playbook.
• 15:58
  Speaker 6: Of course it was in playbook. It's everywhere.
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: People are absolutely loving this, like oh my god, thank you. Yes,
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: we are actually whooping them, except.
• 16:05
  Speaker 6: You're like, wait a minute.
• 16:06
  Speaker 7: No.
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: This was the exact flawed reasoning that led them to
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: think they wouldn't close the strait to begin with, because
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: they said, then they're not going to be able to
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: get their own oil out, as if closing the straight
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: builds like a wall across the water that no ships
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: can get through.
• 16:24
  Speaker 6: And they just like, it's closed up.
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: Sorry, can't get through, guys, that's not what it There's
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: no there's no drawbridge that went down or something like.
• 16:33
  Speaker 6: That's not how this works.
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: What they're saying is, if you're a ship that we
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: don't want to get through, you can't get through. But
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: if you're a ship that we're okay with getting through,
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: go ahead, we'll tell you how to get through. And
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: so they are exporting at least one million barrels per
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: day ron is and they're now telling ships that if
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: they trade in yuan that they can get permission to
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: go through, So there is there's plenty of Iranian oil
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: going through. It's like, this is a really interesting moment
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: because like, how are are our elites really this dumb
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: okay or are they just so desperately desperate for delusion
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: that they're willing to like not notice that this piece
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: includes just straight up falsehoods.
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: What do you make of this number that I see
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: going around a lot in some of the same circles.
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: Irani ballistic missile launches have fallen by more than ninety percent,
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: from three to fifty on February twenty to roughly twenty
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: five by March fourteen, according to publicly available data. Drone
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: launches tell the same story, from more than eight hundred
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: on day one to about seventy five on day fifteen.
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: And the reason I want to get your take on
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: that rhin is actually because the next element. Let's put
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: Trey Yinks, who is the chief foreign correspondent for Fox News,
• 17:51
  Speaker 5: up on the screen. He said, New Israel estimates it
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: will take quote a few weeks to destroy the ballistic
• 17:56
  Speaker 5: missile threat from Iran quote it will take a few
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: weeks more a senior Israeli military official tod Fox News
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: they still have the capability to launch missiles. The official
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: added that are on aimed to launch tens of missiles
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: a day at Israel, but aren't able to do so.
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: This is due to Israel in the US striking the
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: missiles and launchers belonging to the regime. We are hunting them,
• 18:14
  Speaker 5: the official added. So on the one hand, we have
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: news here that their missile capacity has been decimated, launchers decimated,
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: drone drone, same thing. On the other hand, there's still
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: several weeks ago. I was hearing last week that this
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: was just a two week bombing run, that's all it
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: would take. And here, Brian, we're getting competing things from
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: these Israeli and US sources.
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: So I think to be objective about this, the answer
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: is yes and no to your question here. So, yes,
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: we're seeing a massive decrease in the number of launches
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: of both drones and ballistic missiles since day one, but
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: people should ignore the percentage because on day one they
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: said they were going to make a theatrical point and
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: that they were going to you know, hit everybody extremely hard.
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: So they launched a huge number of rockets and drones.
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: There was never an intention to keep up this, to
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: keep up that massive day one pace. So for Israel
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: to in the US to take credit for that massive
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: reduction misunderstands that, like they also they didn't have the capacity.
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: Let's say they have twenty five hundred to three thousand
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: ballistic missiles. If they were doing three fifty a day,
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: that's less than two weeks and they're done. Like even
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: if that, even if Israel doesn't take out any of
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: their capacity to launch, so there are finite limits to
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: what they have, and so they calibrate that, and so
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: they reduced the amount that they were shooting. Israel has
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: also been you know and in the US have completely
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: like smashed Iran's air defenses, particularly in the west and
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: the south, I think less so on the east over
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: the mountains closer to Pakistan. And so, yes, they've had
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: some serious you know, tactical successes there, but they're still
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: shooting them. They still have they're now moving into their
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: more sophisticated ballistic missiles. The drones are much easier to
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: import and also to produce, so they can I think
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: they can keep that up indefinitely. So this is the
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: idea that they're going to completely eliminate all our capacity
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: to project power I think is.
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: Foolish, because they solve the capacity to rebuild.
• 20:26
  Speaker 6: Yeah, you can like, and they have they for forty
• 20:29
  Speaker 6: plus years.
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: They've been developing a weapons industry to withstand a bombing campaign,
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: and so they have entire factories under mountains. So like,
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: what do you like, ground troops the only right, I
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: guess yeah, I mean yes, you would write that's that,
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: that really is it. And so I'd point people to Yemen.
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: Yemen is much smaller and much poorer, and the US
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: spent many billions of dollars bombing them to the enes
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: during that short war that they said it was going
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: to go ninety days. And after a couple of weeks,
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: Trump said, that's it, Like, let's reach a deal. Whothies
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: have said they'll stop firing at our ships, will stop
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: firing at them. If they stop firing at our ships,
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: call us over. And what he said afterwards was like
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: they were much tougher than we thought because their missile
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: production and launch capacity was inside the mountains. And so
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: ask yourself this. Let's say you're, you know, Israel defender
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: here and you're thinking this through. Like, if the US
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: with all of his firepower, can't stop the Hooties.
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: From shooting without ground troops.
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: Without ground troops, how are you going to stop the Iranians,
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: a much bigger, wealthier country that has been planning for
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: forty years. Jeremy Jeremy ska Hill was saying yesterday that
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: you know, the underground capacity that they have makes what
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: Hamas built and gods it like JV so. And also
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: it's such an asymmetrical conflict. It doesn't take that much
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: to continue causing chaos in Dubai.
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: Which is why they needed the.
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: Or to keep the straits closed. Just you know, one
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: drone hitting one ship.
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: Boomed, and that's why all the blustered at the beginning
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: of the war was about the Ayatola being killed because
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: they were expecting again it's Bay of Pigs esque. They
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: were expecting this takeover of the government. They were expecting
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: people to rise up and much much with much more
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: force than has happened so far. And when they say
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: they didn't really need that to happen, you know, the
• 22:40
  Speaker 5: Kurds immaterial whatever to your point, that's that's the ground
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: troop that was Those are the ground troops that the
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: US was hoping would accomplish this onthing, like that's when
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: to all this points about their infrastructure. That's what they
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: needed to have happen, and they're downplaying that now, but
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: that's where you end up getting the goal post keep
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: continuing to be shifted further and further out right.
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And the idea that the Kurds were going to
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: lead a revolution there I think was fantastical.
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: Or the Shaws supporters were going to or some combination
• 23:17
  Speaker 5: of both.
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: They tried to pull off and we'll talk about this
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: in the next block. They tried to pull off a
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: major demonstration anti government demonstration yesterday didn't really seem to materialize.
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: You've got the blow down in the south, you know,
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: but they're not they're not they're not interested in kind
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: of taking over the country. We got the Azaris next
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: to the Kurds, but they're not like, that's that's not
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: going to work. Pozesken common A actually like has some
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: roots in the Asari population, so it's like that's probably
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: not gonna fly.
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: Well, it's okay with the Trump administration because here is
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: Economic Advisor Kevin Hassett on CNBOC yesterday saying this, this
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: work could go on forever and our economy will be
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: just fine.
• 24:02
  Speaker 6: Maybe not for you, but fine.
• 24:04
  Speaker 9: This economy is fundamentally sound, and that if it were
• 24:08
  Speaker 9: to be extended this it wouldn't really disrupt the US
• 24:11
  Speaker 9: economy very much at all. It would hurt consumers, and
• 24:14
  Speaker 9: we'd have to think about, you know, if that continued,
• 24:17
  Speaker 9: what we would have to do about that.
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: But that's like really the last of our concerns.
• 24:20
  Speaker 9: Right now, because we're very confident that this thing is
• 24:23
  Speaker 9: going ahead of schedule.
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: In the same breath there he said it wouldn't hurt
• 24:27
  Speaker 5: the economy, it would hurt consumers, right, and.
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: That's really the last of our concerns.
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: That's perfect. Saying that it won't hurt the economy it
• 24:34
  Speaker 5: will hurt consumers is actually the perfect distillation of how people,
• 24:40
  Speaker 5: actually a lot of the people has to has spent
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: years criticizing, think about the economy. Stock's going to keep
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: going up. That's the economy. The economy is the markets.
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: The good news is that you don't really do much
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: consumption anymore anyway because you have no money. Something like
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: what of the I don't know if we have the
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: latest charts, Hey, huge portion of consumer activity is now
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: done by the top ten to twenty percent.
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: Yes, it is like eighty percent.
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: So that's one reason they don't actually care as much
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: about the consumer economy, because we have systematically destroyed the
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: consumer economy by making sure that people don't have money
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: to spend.
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: I would also then like to ask Kevin Hassett what
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: was all of the Liberation Day about? Then? If the
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: consumers aren't the economy, what was that about.
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: You never thought you'd hear a White House telling the public, Hey,
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: a wet person shouldn't be afraid of the rain.
• 25:36
  Speaker 6: It already sucks for you. It's gonna get worse. But
• 25:38
  Speaker 6: that's the last of our concerns.
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: But I mean, him saying that and saying it rather
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: poorly suggests that they were not prepared for long term impact,
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: and they now are trying to downplay the obvious, obvious
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: harms that would come from long term impact or from
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: a longer war, more drone out, drawn out war, and
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: are kind of doing this on the fly. That's my
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: impression of what we're getting from this is that they
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: didn't expect in a midterm year to have to defend
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: a wartime economy. And now the goalpost keeps getting shifted.
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: Israel saying, oh, three more weeks, three more weeks, that's
• 26:17
  Speaker 5: what they're telling Fox News, and Trump is saying, we
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: could keep doing this as long as we want. We've
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: already won, but we're going to keep going as long
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: as we possibly can.
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And granted we gave the nastiest possible interpretation of
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: what he said there. I don't think he earned the
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: bendewit it out, so I don't feel bad. But he
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: did say, tucked in the middle there, we can do
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: something about the consumer concerns, which what he's implying there
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: is that they could do some sort of stimulus I think,
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: like some kind of government intervention that's going to help consumers,
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: which I don't know if that's actually true, if they
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: could actually have the will to do that or the
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: plan to do that, but he was suggesting that they
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: could do that.
• 27:01
  Speaker 6: So okay, even if.
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: Consumers do get hurt, that we can we can do something.
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: We'll help We'll help you guys out, don't worry, so
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: you feel better. Does that help help you feel better?
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: All right, let's move on to the embassy in Baghdad.
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: Ryan really striking footage coming out of Iraq yesterday. Let's
• 27:22
  Speaker 5: put b one up on the screen. Maybe, Ryan, you
• 27:24
  Speaker 5: can tell us what people are seeing.
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, this is so, you're seeing a lot of footage
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: emerging out of Baghdad where regular people are on the
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: streets are just are capturing these incredible kind of air
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: battles between the Green Zone air defenses and the drones
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: that are coming mostly from Iraqi militias. And as you
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: see there that one didn't but wasn't stopped and you
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: saw a massive explosion inside the US embassy compound there.
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: So the these Iraqi militias were empowered by US during
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: the two thousand and three invasion. Iraq is a Shia
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: majority country and had been run by Sunni dictator Sodom Hussein.
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: When we toppled Saddam, we then allowed, you know, the
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: political rise of the Shia population, which is very closely
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: aligned with Iran. Iran sent its own forces and support
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: into Iraq. They were saying at the time, ironically, because
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: you'll recognize this, this reasoning, it's better for us to
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: fight them there than to fight them here. Very American argument.
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: We have to fight them in Vietnam or Afghanistan, and
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: run so that they don't fight us here in New
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: York City, except when our politicians say that it sounds absurd.
• 28:48
  Speaker 6: It's like, they're not fighting us here. What are you
• 28:50
  Speaker 6: talking about?
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: Now? There was nine to eleven, but they're not otherwise
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: not invading the United States.
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: Well, I mean the great irony is as you create
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: the Isis comes out of the post eleven Middle Eastern
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: conflicts and very intentionally takes the fight here.
• 29:05
  Speaker 6: Or they inspire people who take it here.
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, And so the Iranians felt like this was
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: a way to stave off an attack on Iran, was
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: to keep us bogged down in our wreck. And I
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: guess it worked for twenty three years. So and so
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: all of the all of the strategies inside Iran who
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: were forecasting that the US and Israel were intending to
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: attack Iran at some point, and so we need to
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: stay that all as long as possible.
• 29:34
  Speaker 6: They've been shown to be correct there.
• 29:37
  Speaker 7: Uh.
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: Our Our kind of occupation of Iraq was expected then
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: to enable us to project more power, you know, throughout
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: the throughout the region. We built one of the biggest
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: or the one of the biggest embassies, the Green Zone
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: in the world in Baghdad, we can put up B
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: two here. And so the Iraqi militias have this very
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: ripe and nearby target that they can that they have
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: always threatened, like if you hit Iran. What the big
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: the big strategic vulnerability that the US has always had
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: is this what you're looking at right here, this is
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: the green Zone and so this is a a Iraqi
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: drone that they they published this video of them flying
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: for something like two minutes kind of uninterrupted, you know,
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: throughout the throughout the green zone, using technical using a
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: communications that are unable to be jammed because you're so
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: because they're so close, Like Iran couldn't do this because
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: they're too far away, but because of the Iraqis are
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: right nearby, they can. They can just do this. Then
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: they and then that they and then those drones go
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: in and they and they hit whatever they want to hit.
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: You know, they have kind of free reign and so
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: you're seeing like massive explosions and huge risk to the
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: whatever service members or Americans are still there. You know,
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: lot of them obviously were evacuated knowing knowing that this
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: was going to going to happen. Meanwhile, the US tax
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: continue to be completely insane or the US and Israel
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: once you should do B three.
• 31:16
  Speaker 6: Here and put up this.
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: So we start the war by hitting a girls school
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: which on if you looked at it on a satellite image,
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: you could see chalk on the You could see purple
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: chalk on the near near the playground.
• 31:32
  Speaker 6: You could tell it was a school.
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: It was marked on Google Earth literally as the school that,
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: like Google Earth, had the name of the school on there.
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: Now we've hit a boys school that's called Shahad Komani
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: Elementary Boys School in Sharraz, Iran, and people are like,
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: how did we do this again? And treata Parsi points
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: out that shahead is in the name of the school.
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: Hopefully we're not hitting it. Everything named Komani, but Shahad
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: is a very common name but common commonly used word.
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: But it's the brand of the drones that Iran sells
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: to Russia, and Iran is using to hit US bases.
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: So the most logical explanation here is that an intern
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: or AI or a combination saw the word shahead and
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: we're like, oh haha, we found one of their factories.
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: Let's bomb it. Instead they bomb in elementary school reminds
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: me of another one treat of flag where they've been
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: hitting all of the different police.
• 32:40
  Speaker 6: Headquarters that they can find. They bombed in.
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: Tehran a thing called Police Park, which that's just the
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: name of a park. It's like trees, benches, grass, and
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: then you know, we dropped a massive bomb on police
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: park just because it's labeled.
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: Police schools are close in Iran right now, so that's
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: the relying.
• 33:00
  Speaker 6: Here, right, so.
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: Right right, because the girls school was hit before we
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: under before they understood they were getting attacked right away.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, which again for all the people who said Iran
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: hit it, Iran wasn't even firing yet, because Iran, like
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: we started the war and then Iran responded a few
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: hours later.
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: Immediately it was ridiculous and.
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: The right it was like only one side was firing.
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: We're like, you must have been them.
• 33:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Ran. There's this drop side article we wanted to
• 33:30
  Speaker 5: talk about too. Before we can put this up on
• 33:32
  Speaker 5: the screen. The political uncertainty, as you all write about
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: in Iraq right now, is hanging over the conflict. Break
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: this down for us.
• 33:41
  Speaker 6: Yeah, So.
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: For people who followed the kind of Iraq war twenty
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: years ago, remember the name Norael Malachy, who was you know,
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: something of a US ally. You know, we always had
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: some There was always a little you know, he wasn't
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: a curveball or whatever. You know, he wasn't like a
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: total like American plant, but he was a you know,
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: American ally. But because there is some actual democratic pressure
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: and expressions in Iraq now as they're actually you know, anyway,
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: he is responsive to a lot of the anti American hostility,
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: and so he's become less of a reliable ally than
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: the US would would like in that place, because the
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: US is like, hey, wait, I thought we do a war,
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: we install people like they're supposed to, then just do
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: exactly what we say, because we don't seem to acknowledge
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: that Iraq is an actual democracy in the sense that
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: they have elections.
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: Oh, we acknowledge them, now, that's our that was our
• 34:50
  Speaker 5: mission seeming.
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: Accomplished, because every day I'm told that there's only one
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: democracy in the Middle East. Every time, wait a minute,
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: didn't we didn't a whole bunch of Americans die to
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: make another one?
• 34:59
  Speaker 6: What about?
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: And then I constantly hear about them having elections because
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: they can't form can't have a form a government's name.
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: Another election, another election, another election.
• 35:08
  Speaker 6: What does that?
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: Why doesn't that count? Is that not the Middle East?
• 35:12
  Speaker 6: Anyway?
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: In never mind all the only democracy is the one
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: where you know, half the population isn't allowed to vote.
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: So we're now in the place where we're destabilizing Iraq
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: to a very significant degree.
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: I mean, we've roughly been in that place for twenty years.
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: But yeah, re destabilizing, Yeah, I guess would be the
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: the word for it. You've got Muktata Soder, who was
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: a powerful she is, a powerful she cleric, was a
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: key figure, a key nationalist figure during the kind of
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: insurgency against the US occupation, and he has been encouraging
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: again the Iraqi population to unite along Sunni and shialligans
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: not to and to understand who the enemy is, and
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: he means the US and Israel. Sistani, who's another major figure,
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: kind of the maybe the most revered Shia figure both
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: in Iraq, in Iran and Iran, issued a fought well
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: of sorts that didn't go all the way to saying
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: that all she is like ought to fight on behalf
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: of Iran against the US and Israel, but kind of
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: got very close to that and so this is you know,
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: we spent we lost thousands of American lives and spent
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: trillions of dollars as part of this strategic play to
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: like take over the Middle East, and the place where
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: we did it is not remotely kind of reliable for
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: us at this point. And you continue to have these
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: like crash landings where you've got refueling jets flying over
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: Iraqi airspace and then the militias.
• 36:56
  Speaker 6: Are firing at them.
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: It's already like possible task to try to refuel a jet,
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: like just the idea of that at like five hundred
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: miles an hour or whatever you're going and trying to refuel.
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: A jet they're the best of and.
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: Then you've got then you're getting shelled from the ground. Ye,
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: so we had one crash. We got another one doing
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: emergency landing recently. So yeah, it's it's not good for us.
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: There's a real poetic tragedy to the side by side
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: and Iran in I rock right now watching the prior
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: experiment in nation building, which this president condemned. I don't
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: even need to say this, it's so obvious. I don't
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: actually have to explain it. But watching that experiment continue
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: to crash and burn while you've just started another experiment.
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: That's even that's fueling the continued spiraling of the prior conflict.
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: It's just heartbreaking.
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it really, it really truly is.
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: And let's make it worse. Let's with the next element
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: on the screen. This is a Guardian report. UK security
• 38:04
  Speaker 5: advisor attended US around talks and judged deal was within reach. Ryan.
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: This reminds me of some of the reports we got
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: early in the Ukraine conflict, as enough Tolly Bennett, who
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: then retracted his claim, and others would say, listen, these
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: negotiations are really close, but the US didn't want to
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: didn't want Zelenska to make a deal earlier. This actually
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: kind of reminds me of this.
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: Yes, the difference here is that there's still some reasonable,
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: reasonable debate over whether or not Putin was serious about
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: and was actually willing to go through with, even if
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: the US had said, okay, we'll take it, well, we'll
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: accept all these terms. Some I think I think he
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: probably would have been, but there's some reasonable debate about
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: whether or not he would have been.
• 38:49
  Speaker 6: It really isn't reasonable debate here.
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: And one thing I this Guardian reporting makes me proud
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: of the drop site reporting that we did in the
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: run up to the war, because what what I've always
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: tried to make our north star is to tell people
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: things in real time when they're still actionable, rather than
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: doing the really impressive TikTok reporting about what happened in
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: the past. That's such a good point when it's too
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: late and you all in the new in the US media,
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: you get so much of the in the U k.
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: Two get so much of the here's what post mortem stuff.
• 39:26
  Speaker 6: I don't want them.
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: I don't want the mort like I don't want that,
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: So that you don't mort that's the whole point, right
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: to give people the information. So Jeremy had a piece
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: where you know, he didn't use the word surprising. It
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: was like unbelievable, I think was the word that was
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: used to describe what the Iranians were offering in these talks.
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: And so what the Guardian is reporting here is that
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: Jonathan Powell was one of the top Britain's national security advisors,
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: sat in on the US and Iran talks and right
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: he quote judged that the offer made by Tehran on
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: its nuclear program was significant enough to prevent a rush
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: to war. The Guardian can reveal Pal thought progress have
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: been made in Geneva in late February and that the
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: deal proposed by Iran was quote surprising, according to sources,
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: And so he's saying, we heard unbelievable. He's saying surprising
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: that like the concessions, and we also heard that the
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: concessions they were making would like be stunning and surprising,
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: et cetera, to like the twenty fifteen twenty fourteen Obama
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: era negotiators, that that Iran went far beyond what they
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: had offered previously and instead they went nowhere. One source
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: said that there was quote widespread concern about the US
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: expertise on the talks, represented by Donald Trump's son in
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: law Gyard Kushner and Steve Whitcoff, Trump's special envoy on
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: several issues. The Guardians reporting here what we kind of
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: already saw in public, that like Witcoff and Kusher didn't
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: really know what they were talking about and didn't understand
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: this is nuclear stuff. I don't blame them for non understanding,
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: and I wouldn't.
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: I mean, I blame them, but yes.
• 41:14
  Speaker 6: You're supposed to have a technical advisor.
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: So this guy Pale brought a technical advisor with him
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: who would translate to him like what all of these
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: things mean? And Witcoff whenever he would go out and
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: publicly talk about things, he would say like industrial grade,
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: and it's like, well, what is it. There's no such
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: thing as industrial grade. Like that's not even a word
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: that people use. There's weapons grade. I think that's what
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: you mean. But like, so, what it really fueled was
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: the idea that they were just not remotely serious about
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: about reaching a deal, that the that it.
• 41:49
  Speaker 6: Was that they were just going through the motions and so.
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: Well, so with some of that then crashed wires or
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: because I mean, we don't know what wit coffin Kusher
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: would have agreed to if they had been accurately informed.
• 42:03
  Speaker 5: I suppose maybe that's impossible, but maybe.
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: They were told forget it, like we're not actually making
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: a deal, so it doesn't matter. Yeah, they quoted, well,
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: they quote a Gulf diplomat in the Guardian saying, quote,
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: we regarded Witkoff and Kushner as Israeli assets that dragged
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: the president into a war he wants to get out
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: of that might be a little generous to the president,
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: like their assignments if they were serious about the talks,
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: find somebody who understands nuclear physics and the nuclear industry,
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: and they take notes. They sit next to you, they
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: take notes, and then you talk about it later as
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: you hear Witcough talk about it now like you're like God,
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: you like because he'll say things like they told us
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: they have eleven bombs and they're proud of that, and
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: they rannis afterwards like that. We didn't say that. We
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: said we have a certain amount of material that's sixty percent.
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: You know, if that's at sixty percent, could go higher
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: and make bombs, or we can have you know, we
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: can dilute it if you'd like, or we can have
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: Russia to take it, like we're willing to. This is
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: what we have, Yeah, and we're willing to. Then you
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: suggest things, We'll suggest things to make it so that
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: you feel comfortable that it doesn't get weaponized.
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: So this Guardian report pops the same day that, as
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: we covered earlier in the show, NATO basically says, no,
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: we're not doing the straight up from use thing not happening,
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: which may have been intentional. It may have been a
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: strategic effort to kind of explain or to flesh out
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: the reasoning without you know, explicitly saying we were there
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: and we thought that this war never had to happen,
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: that there was actually an achievable goal on the table
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: that probably would have been better than war, whatever the
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: end of the war actually looks like. So that's that's
• 43:50
  Speaker 5: actually possible. It's the reason this is popping in the Guardian. Possible.
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: It explains there are all kinds of explanations for why
• 43:57
  Speaker 5: the NATO countries might not want to get involved with
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: the show from Moves, but this would be one of them.
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, yeah, it certainly could be. Also, like, there's
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: no military solution. Really, well, if there was a military
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: solution to it, the US would be able to carry
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: it out on its own.
• 44:12
  Speaker 5: Well, so this is let's put B six on the screen.
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: The Washington Post report from John Hudson yesterday, senior Israeli
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: officials have told US diplomats that Iranian protesters quote will
• 44:21
  Speaker 5: get slaughtered if they take to the streets against their government,
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: even as Israel publicly calls for a popular uprising, According
• 44:28
  Speaker 5: to a State Department cable not an anonymous source, a State
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: Department cable reviewed by the Washington Post very significant.
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: Ran Yes, and B eight kind of backs that up.
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: If we can put up this this is a this
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: is a drop site report from last night as Israel
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: calls for an uprising in Iran, bestiege militias, vow to
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: crush opposition to the state. So that's sort of backing
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: up Israel's claim that so the security services in Iran
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: are signaling very publicly at this point that they're they're
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: going to they're going to see protests at this point
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: as insurgency basically m M that. You know, there were
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: several days of protests in December January or early January
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: that were met with a very hands off response, and
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: then by like the third day or so, there was
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: this massive crackdown as and and as the Irania say,
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: like the Israeli infiltrators, massade, et cetera, you know, started
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: firing at security forces, they fired back. Either way. There
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: was a couple of days where it's like, hey, people
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: are upset about the currency crash, We're going to allow
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: these protests to go. And then then at some point
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: they didn't. Now they're saying forget it, like the second
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: that there are protests, were there's going to be a crackdown.
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: So this is a rare case of kind of Israeli
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: intelligence and kind of Iranian public statements aligning. So so
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: there was supposed to be some protests last night. It wasn't.
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: It didn't seem to be much that materialized. And you
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: can imagine why, Like, if you're it's it's it's clear
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: that it's it would be very difficult to mass that
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: amount of people even even as the Israelis are bombing.
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: They're bombing the heck out of besiege checkpoints and others.
• 46:24
  Speaker 5: Energy supplies in the U A.
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: Well, And so yeah, so now Iran is like is
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: retaliating against energy infrastructure.
• 46:35
  Speaker 6: This is there.
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: There's been this alleged dispute within between the US and
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: Israel where the US has been telling Israel not to
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: bomb Iranian oil infrastructure. They hit it anyway, and their
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: argument was, now, now Iran is going to bomb all
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: the Gulf oil infrastructure. But now Trump is out there.
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: You know, they hit carg Island, but they hit parts
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: apparently away from the infrastructure on the island.
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: After brain killed me, he instructed the president to do
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: this with Fox and Friends covered that last week.
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, go ahead, and the Iranians keeps saying, this place
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: oil island. Then Iranians keeps saying, if you want to
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: take Oil Island, please make our day.
• 47:12
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: Putting thousands of American troops on one little island where
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: the Iranians can just fire at them from three directions
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: would would be just a military catastrophe.
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: Let's talk about Joe Kent. He had enough. Sager and
• 47:28
  Speaker 5: Crystal covered this yesterday. Obviously one of the highest ranking
• 47:34
  Speaker 5: intelligence officials in the Trump administration, Joe Kent resigned with
• 47:39
  Speaker 5: a letter. We're learning more and more, We're getting the
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: Postborums is right, and I mentioned earlier in the show
• 47:44
  Speaker 5: about what exactly went on behind the scenes as Joe Kent,
• 47:49
  Speaker 5: who was in targe of counter terrorism work close to
• 47:53
  Speaker 5: Tulci Gabbard. He posts his resignation letter yesterday, delivers it
• 47:58
  Speaker 5: to the president. Apparently behind the scenes, JdE Vance had
• 48:01
  Speaker 5: told him on Monday to just think about it, just
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: think a little bit about this, because they had a
• 48:08
  Speaker 5: conversation when Joe Kent said he was going to resign.
• 48:12
  Speaker 5: Trump gets asked about this in the Oval office yesterday
• 48:16
  Speaker 5: after the news breaks.
• 48:17
  Speaker 7: This is c one, You're director of National Counter terrorism.
• 48:21
  Speaker 7: Joe Kent, he just resigned today. He said he can't
• 48:24
  Speaker 7: support your conflict with Iran. What's your reaction to that,
• 48:27
  Speaker 7: and did you well?
• 48:28
  Speaker 8: I read his sabment. I always thought he was a
• 48:29
  Speaker 8: nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security,
• 48:33
  Speaker 8: very weak on security. I didn't know him well, but
• 48:37
  Speaker 8: I thought seemed like a pretty nice guy. But when
• 48:41
  Speaker 8: I read a statement, I realized that it's a good
• 48:45
  Speaker 8: thing that he's out because he said that Iran was
• 48:48
  Speaker 8: not a threat. Iran was a threat. Every country realized
• 48:52
  Speaker 8: what a threat Iran was. The question is whether or
• 48:54
  Speaker 8: not they wanted to do something about it.
• 48:56
  Speaker 5: So in his resignation letter, Kent said he did not
• 49:00
  Speaker 5: Iran posted an imminent threat. You may remember Tulsia Gabbert
• 49:03
  Speaker 5: herself testified in Congress, what was that last April Ryan
• 49:07
  Speaker 5: before midnight hammer that Iran was not building nuclear weapons.
• 49:14
  Speaker 5: Tulsi Gaberg's actually set again to testify and from Senate
• 49:16
  Speaker 5: Intel today around ten am. So we'll be getting more
• 49:19
  Speaker 5: from that. But this is Telsi Gabbard's statement. We'll put
• 49:24
  Speaker 5: this up on the screen. Donald Trump was overwhelmingly elected
• 49:27
  Speaker 5: by the American people to be our president. And Commander
• 49:29
  Speaker 5: in chief. As our commander in chief, he is responsible
• 49:31
  Speaker 5: for determining what is and is not an imminent threat,
• 49:35
  Speaker 5: and whether or not to take action he deems necessary
• 49:37
  Speaker 5: to protect the safety and security of art troops, the
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: American people, and our country. The Office of the Director
• 49:42
  Speaker 5: of National Intelligence is responsible for helping coordinate and integrate
• 49:45
  Speaker 5: all intelligence provide the President Commander Chief with the best
• 49:48
  Speaker 5: information available to inform his decisions. After carefully reviewing all
• 49:50
  Speaker 5: the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist
• 49:54
  Speaker 5: Islamist regime in Iran post an inminitt threat, and he
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: took action based on that conclusion. So Ryan, reading between
• 50:00
  Speaker 5: the lines of that, it's not hard to see Tolci
• 50:02
  Speaker 5: Gabbard is hardly embracing the claim herself that Iron posted
• 50:07
  Speaker 5: an imminent threat. I saw Glenn slamming this as cowardly.
• 50:11
  Speaker 5: I think Sager did as well. You know, to be honest,
• 50:15
  Speaker 5: I have a totally different take on this, which is
• 50:18
  Speaker 5: basically that I think it's good there are remaining people
• 50:22
  Speaker 5: in the Trump administration who when these decisions are coming
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: across the transom, they're skeptical. And I would imagine that
• 50:30
  Speaker 5: both Tolsy Gabbard and Jadmans were privately skeptical. If it's
• 50:33
  Speaker 5: the case that they were not skeptical, that's a problem.
• 50:36
  Speaker 5: That's that's that's significant. If they were sniffling and saying, oh, yes,
• 50:40
  Speaker 5: this intelligence does appear to show an imminent threat, and
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: that's what they were advising Donald Trump because they could
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: tell that's what he wanted behind the scenes. That's terrible.
• 50:48
  Speaker 5: I think it's It was a brave decision from Joe
• 50:51
  Speaker 5: Kent too, so I don't know what's happening behind the scenes.
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: The problem on the on the Toulsi point though, is
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: there's no evidence that she has any influence in there.
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: She's been apparently cut out of briefings.
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: Right, So if you're in Kent probably was too. If
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: you're so, if the argument for staying in is that
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: you're going to use your you're going to sell your
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: soul and like it's debase yourself. But internally you're going
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: to be able to make the argument, that's one thing.
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: But if you're also cut out of the process, like
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: you know, Soccer probably has more influence in there than
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: Tulsi at this point.
• 51:25
  Speaker 5: Well they'll they would replace her with a like total
• 51:30
  Speaker 5: stooge at some point. So if I had to, like,
• 51:33
  Speaker 5: do I think it's a profile encourage Likely not, I'm
• 51:36
  Speaker 5: not saying that, But I also am not like clamoring
• 51:40
  Speaker 5: for some ceremonial resignation, though I think what Joe Kent
• 51:45
  Speaker 5: did in specifically citing his disagreement being over the question
• 51:49
  Speaker 5: of an imminent threat was brave as well. So I'm
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: not coming down hard on either side of it. But
• 51:54
  Speaker 5: I also just don't think it's the worst thing in
• 51:57
  Speaker 5: the world to still have somebody who may be like,
• 52:00
  Speaker 5: we have a chance that she's being skeptical behind the scenes,
• 52:04
  Speaker 5: whoever her replacement would be. I'm sure that's that's not
• 52:07
  Speaker 5: true at all now.
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: But a second one, The last thing Tulsa has to
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: do to me is that's the only power she has
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: left is to make a principled resignation. Yeah, because then
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: you'd have two back to back, which would it tell
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: the public something more than just the one.
• 52:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And she's testifying in front of Congress today, which,
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: by the time this airs, what I said, may age poor.
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: Saving it for there, and she's kind of just go
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: full worth and she resigned right there in front of Congress.
• 52:37
  Speaker 5: But what I just said, may age very poorly in
• 52:38
  Speaker 5: the next hour, because she's probably going to go to
• 52:41
  Speaker 5: Congress today and agree that there was an imminent threat
• 52:44
  Speaker 5: in some way or another, even though she didn't in
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: her statement.
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: After Joe Kent, So probably right.
• 52:50
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it may age poorly in just an hour.
• 52:53
  Speaker 6: Was ever lost money betting on Taltia to cave.
• 52:57
  Speaker 5: It's the reports that actually were coming out of a
• 53:00
  Speaker 5: place like Fox News, where people were just citing anonymous
• 53:04
  Speaker 5: administration officials. Did you see this happening all day? Anonymous
• 53:07
  Speaker 5: administration officials were saying that Kent was quote a leaker,
• 53:11
  Speaker 5: a known leaker.
• 53:12
  Speaker 6: They leaked that he was a leaker.
• 53:13
  Speaker 5: Incredible stuff, and it was getting passed on seriously by
• 53:17
  Speaker 5: people who are otherwise skeptical of the media but are
• 53:20
  Speaker 5: generally supportive of Trump's war, being like, see this is
• 53:24
  Speaker 5: Kent had to go. Kent had to go. And it's like,
• 53:26
  Speaker 5: maybe apply a little bit of skepticism to anonymous leaks
• 53:29
  Speaker 5: about someone else being a leaker, but that, yeah, I
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: saw Fox News had that yesterday. Other news outlets had
• 53:36
  Speaker 5: that yesterday. Just completely ridiculous, completely ridiculous stuff all around.
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: Ben Shapiro, not a fan of Joe Kent's resignation letter.
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: Let's roll see three.
• 53:47
  Speaker 10: Joe Kent quit his job at the National counter Terrorism
• 53:50
  Speaker 10: Center and issued a scathing letter designed to undermine President Trump.
• 53:54
  Speaker 10: The letter is deeply, deeply conspiratorial, it states openly. They
• 53:57
  Speaker 10: quote Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and
• 54:01
  Speaker 10: it is clear that we started this war due to
• 54:02
  Speaker 10: pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: Now that is conspiracy trash.
• 54:09
  Speaker 10: It's also kind of strange since President Trump has said
• 54:11
  Speaker 10: that it's conspiracy trash.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: So apparently Trump is so.
• 54:14
  Speaker 10: Deeply, deeply enthrall to those strange, powerful American lobbies.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: We're not going to say.
• 54:19
  Speaker 10: We're not gonna say it that he apparently has been
• 54:22
  Speaker 10: so bamboozled by them that he's still under the impression
• 54:25
  Speaker 10: that he's his own man.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: But here's the thing. President Trump is his own man.
• 54:29
  Speaker 10: He makes his own decisions, and as for our usual arrangement,
• 54:32
  Speaker 10: Trump's critics are cowards who are simply unwilling to acknowledge
• 54:35
  Speaker 10: that Trump is the one making the call. But Joe
• 54:37
  Speaker 10: Kent continued, quote, early in this administration, high ranking Israeli
• 54:40
  Speaker 10: officials and influential members of the American media deployed a
• 54:44
  Speaker 10: misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and
• 54:47
  Speaker 10: sewed pre war sentiments to encourage a war of Theran.
• 54:50
  Speaker 10: This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing
• 54:53
  Speaker 10: that Ron posted imminent threats to the United States and
• 54:55
  Speaker 10: that should you strike now, there was a clear path
• 54:57
  Speaker 10: to a swift victory. This was a lie and is
• 55:00
  Speaker 10: the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into
• 55:03
  Speaker 10: the disastrous Iraq War that cost our nation in the
• 55:05
  Speaker 10: lives of thousands of our best men and women. Again,
• 55:08
  Speaker 10: the idea here seems to be that President Trump is
• 55:11
  Speaker 10: a moron misled into war by nefarious Israelis and unnamed
• 55:15
  Speaker 10: influential members of the American media. Don't don't saints again.
• 55:19
  Speaker 10: Apparently President Trump has no agency and no thoughts. Kent's
• 55:22
  Speaker 10: letter is replete with this conspiratorial idiocy, including, as we
• 55:26
  Speaker 10: just saw, the idea that it was Israel that forced
• 55:28
  Speaker 10: the original Iraq war, an idea totally and utterly unsupportable
• 55:32
  Speaker 10: by any evidence, given the fact that the actual Prime
• 55:34
  Speaker 10: Minister of Israel at the time, Ario Sharon, opposed the
• 55:38
  Speaker 10: Iraq War. This stuff is brain rot Now listen, we
• 55:42
  Speaker 10: should all be thankful for Joe Kent's long and honorable
• 55:44
  Speaker 10: military service. We can also be glad that he's leaving,
• 55:47
  Speaker 10: since his ideology is the same as that of Tucker Carlson,
• 55:50
  Speaker 10: the guy who says that the war is disgusting in
• 55:51
  Speaker 10: evil and who has been busy sexting with Damala's. Tucker
• 55:54
  Speaker 10: Carlson calls Kent a personal friend and quote the bravest
• 55:56
  Speaker 10: man I know. Frankly, I think that it is a
• 55:59
  Speaker 10: good thing that Kent is not in this position. We
• 56:01
  Speaker 10: cannot have a director of counter terrorism who is somehow
• 56:03
  Speaker 10: advocating preemptive surrender to the world's leading state sponsor of
• 56:07
  Speaker 10: terrorism in the middle of a war.
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: In that letter, Kent also talked about his wife being killed,
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: and let me read exactly from the letter, quote in
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: a war manufactured by Israel, and his wife was killed
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: in an ISIS bombing in twenty nineteen in Syria.
• 56:25
  Speaker 6: So Kent really going all the way in. I would
• 56:29
  Speaker 6: argue there's.
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: That there's more evidence to say that Israel fueled the
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: Syrian Civil War than there is that they drove us
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: to war in Iraq. We had our own motivations to
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: go to war in Iraq. But there were plenty of
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: other reasons that Syria descended into civil war that weren't Israel,
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: though Israel certainly did fuel it and benefit from it
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: and annihilate the Syrian military after al shar took go over,
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: et cetera. But it is interesting that he's laying everything
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: on Israel there, like this is pretty yeah, this pretty maximalist.
• 57:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah take yeah, well, but then at the same time
• 57:11
  Speaker 5: to dismiss it as entirely conspiracy trash. It's basically like
• 57:16
  Speaker 5: the same level of the CIA intentionally calling things conspiracy theories.
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: When you have the President of the United States, the
• 57:26
  Speaker 5: Secretary of State, the Speaker of the House saying we
• 57:29
  Speaker 5: struck when we did because of Israel, that is just
• 57:33
  Speaker 5: the plain fact they said that. They have, of course
• 57:38
  Speaker 5: fleshed the point out by saying it was the precipitating
• 57:42
  Speaker 5: factor of the when it happened, that was the reason
• 57:46
  Speaker 5: for the exact time, and so yes, there's nuance to it,
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: but they literally said that, And so to claim that
• 57:54
  Speaker 5: what Kent is building here in the argument is just
• 57:58
  Speaker 5: conspiracy track, that's completely ridiculous. Now I've said before, like
• 58:04
  Speaker 5: I'm I think we should put blame plenty of the
• 58:08
  Speaker 5: blame on ourselves, because there are a whole lot of
• 58:10
  Speaker 5: people here in the United States, whether because they support
• 58:13
  Speaker 5: Israel or they have other reasons for wanting to take
• 58:16
  Speaker 5: down Oran, they want to take down IRN, They've been
• 58:18
  Speaker 5: wanting to do this for decades. We didn't just do
• 58:20
  Speaker 5: this because of Israel. But it would be the actual
• 58:24
  Speaker 5: conspiracy theory would be to say that the actions of
• 58:27
  Speaker 5: Israel had nothing to do with when we attacked.
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I feel like, what's a little bit of
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: what's going on here?
• 58:34
  Speaker 6: You tell me?
• 58:34
  Speaker 4: On the right is they they're new to this kind
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: of anti war posture and they're kind of feeling their
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: way around it, and Israel is something that they can
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: hold on to and feel stable in their criticism.
• 58:49
  Speaker 6: Of US war efforts.
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: And so it's just kind of simpler to say Israel
• 58:56
  Speaker 4: made us do all of these things, rather than looking
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: in Medusa's and staring it down and saying, oh no, no, like, yes,
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: they're along for the ride, but they're a client and
• 59:07
  Speaker 4: the US itself is quite capable of driving all of these,
• 59:14
  Speaker 4: you know, horrific adventures without Israel. Is Israel gladly long
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: for a ride and instigating at times, no doubt about it.
• 59:23
  Speaker 4: But to put all of the blame over there feels
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: like a way to kind of wash ourselves of some
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: of the responsibility.
• 59:30
  Speaker 5: Well, I think the anti war left comes to its
• 59:32
  Speaker 5: position from an anti like a generally like anti imperialist,
• 59:36
  Speaker 5: and often, especially the modern left, anti American, anti Western perspective,
• 59:41
  Speaker 5: whereas the anti war right comes at it from a
• 59:43
  Speaker 5: pro American perspective over and over again. And that's where
• 59:46
  Speaker 5: the people are.
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: It's going to be hard as you learn more.
• 59:50
  Speaker 5: It's a different square to circle. Yeah, that's where the
• 59:52
  Speaker 5: people like Benjapiro are used to dismissing everybody who's anti
• 59:59
  Speaker 5: war as anti American. And so that's how you know
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 5: Tucker Carlson's constantly called an America hater, or Joe Kent,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: probably even though he served his country's wife died for
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 5: this country, is going to be called an America hater too.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 5: People on the anti were left in the like sixties
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 5: and seventies, who many people were veterans, got used to
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 5: being called anti American. In some cases they would legitimately
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 5: qualify as anti American. But from the right, I think
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 5: that's a good point, Ryan, It's coming at it from
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 5: different angles.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: But like, I'm not anti American, I'm anti Israel.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you have a scape scape.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: Don't blame the King, blame his advisors. No blame Trump,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: blame his advisors.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 5: You have escapegoat absolutely, and in some cases that genuinely
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 5: not just a trope, but like actually anti semitic. Yeah,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 5: of course it is. I don't think it's anti Semitic
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 5: from Joe Kent, although he's been accused of that plenty
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 5: of times, had a big falling out with Nick Fuentas.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 5: I think they had a call about whether Funtess would
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 5: back him in that congressional race, and and he didn't know,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 5: and they've like Kent's is absolutely no fan of Fuenttis
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 5: and has spoken at against that sort of thing, but
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 5: he's pretty hardcore and like the the Dissident Right put
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 5: it that way. So that's interesting. I think that's that's
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 5: probably true Ryan, that if you are the pro if
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 5: you're coming to the anti war position from a pro
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 5: American perspective, you're looking for scapegoats.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: And none of this is to excuse or say that
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: Israel's advice here or Israel's role here is innocent. It's
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 4: not to say that at all. It's to say that
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 4: we might be elevating them beyond what they what they deserve.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: Not in this case, though now I think Trump deserves
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: to blame for going along with this. But Israel drove
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 4: this war like this, this one certainly compared to Iraq
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: and Syria, you could say that I think they were
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: a driving force of it.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah, but then you're getting into semantics. And that's the
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 5: thing where it's like to this with the conspiracy theory
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 5: label is frustrating because it's all ultimately labeling a semantic
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 5: debate a conspiracy theory. It's elevating something that is a
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 5: question of like is Joe Kent literally saying the only
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 5: reason for this war it didn't have anything to do
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 5: with Donald Trump, And he's not saying that. He's saying
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 5: that Israel played a major role in pushing us into
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 5: this war. And he's using like like what he would
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 5: probably argue is persuasive language from his perspective to make
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 5: the point. But it's not completely like when you have
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 5: the Secretary of State on tape saying what the Secretary
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 5: of State said, it's not a conspiracy theory at that
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 5: point to say that they were part of what drove
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 5: the war. And so maybe what you want is for
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 5: him to use more careful language. That's an the criticism
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 5: that Ryan just made, and it's entirely fair. But to
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 5: go and call it a conspiracy theory, that's actually I
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 5: mean again, that's the conspiracy theory.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 4: And it's tricky because he's right about this one and
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 4: so and this is the one that we're in right now.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 5: He's right about the yeah, right, right, right.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: He's correct about this one, yeah, Popp. But would keep